Think about this...
Quote:Even if Pence was not aware that sanctions were discussed between Flynn and the Russian ambassador when he made his comments, the episode could leave him with diminished standing, concerning those around him. For the national security adviser to mislead the Vice President on such a sensitive issue with impunity would seem to send a signal about Pence's standing in the West Wing, a Pence adviser said.
Pence has been a bastion of credibility within the administration, as the president himself has trafficked repeatedly in unfounded allegations about crowd size at his inauguration and voter fraud in November.
Politico
The concerns here are all about optics. There's really no hint of concern regarding the connections between the Trump camp and Russia/Putin. Given the evidence we already know about Russian entities almost certainly connected to Putin working to aid Trump's election, that's nuts.
And there looks to be attempts in all this to keep Pence clean. The GOP establishment needs Pence to maintain distance between himself and the Trump/Bannon/Flynn group so that Pence and the GOP have a sort of plausible deniability when the **** hits the fan. Pence is the backup. He's the guy they really want in the WH, not Trump.
But as I said, none of this deals with the core threat in all this - the Russian influence on the election and perhaps influence over key individuals.
We know already that the GOP, holding all the power now, will no mount a real investigation into this matter. We know they won't allow an independent congressional investigation that goes deeper than a facade and pretense. This work will have to be done by whistleblowers and by hard-nosed reporting.
